Why did kobolds change?

[Kaiwen]

In the beginning, kobolds were short, doglike creatures.
Here's something I found Googling 'dog kobold':
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/cc/23/84/cc2384d8164416c98f23fb21c6140bdf--kobold-furry.jpg
But now, they're short, lizardlike creatures with some link to dragons.
Here's an image from 'lizard kobold'.
https://warosu.org/data/tg/img/0291/08/1388151576911.jpg

My question is, why did WoTC change this? This seems like a pretty arbitrary thing to do when they could've just updated the entry on lizardfolk. So why retcon everything about kobolds?

[johnbragg]

BAck in the day, kobolds were, besides being canine types, 1/2 HD Small creatures (1-4 hp) whose main advantages were numbers and defenses built into their lairs, traps and deadfalls and such. These were the kobolds of Tuckers' Kobolds fame, back in the days of 1st and 2nd edition.

They were always reptilian egg-layers, canonically. But in 3rd edition, someone came up with the idea, probably for a laugh, that kobolds insisted, militantly, that they were dragonkin.
(Hah hah, those comic relief cannon-fodder kobolds, insisting on a family connection to big bad dragons. Ha ha.) And soon enough someone took the joke seriously, and the Dragonwrought Kobold was born.

[DrMotives]

I dunno, but the dog-like guys were basic rules & 1st edition AD&D. In 2nd Edition, they looked more like big-eyed "little grey men" but with stubby horns and dragon-like ears. They were basically anemic weird-looking goblins. I think with those 3 forms, it felt more like a natural progression.

[ZamielVanWeber]

They reconned fairly little. They went from scaly egg laying tiny creatures to scaly tiny egg laying creatures that are related to dragons. I mean, neither have any thing at all to do with the actual lore of kobolds.

[Nifft]

1e Kobolds were scaled, hairless, and had horns.

http://i.imgur.com/YBfUsyt.jpg


2e Kobolds were like this:


Barely clearing 3 feet in height, kobolds have scaly hides that range from dark, rusty brown to a rusty black. They smell of damp dogs and stagnant water. Their eyes glow like a bright red spark and they have two small horns ranging from tan to white. Because of the kobolds’ fondness for wearing raggedy garb of red and orange, their non-prehensile rat-like tails, and their language (which sounds like small dogs yapping), these fell creatures are often not taken seriously.


They smell like dogs and yap like dog barks, but they didn't look like dogs in either edition of AD&D.

[Necroticplague]

In the beginning, kobolds were short, doglike creatures.
Here's something I found Googling 'dog kobold':
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/cc/23/84/cc2384d8164416c98f23fb21c6140bdf--kobold-furry.jpg
No, the weren't. They made dog-like noises and smelled like dogs, buy they weren't really doglike. As much as I like Polt, such dog-like kobolds have never been in dnd.


But now, they're short, lizardlike creatures with some link to dragons.
Here's an image from 'lizard kobold'.
https://warosu.org/data/tg/img/0291/08/1388151576911.jpg

My question is, why did WoTC change this? This seems like a pretty arbitrary thing to do when they could've just updated the entry on lizardfolk. So why retcon everything about kobolds?

That's not a retcon, that's just filling in a bit of detail that wasn't there before (adding the dragon link). Also, lizardfolk have very little similarity to kobolds, so I'm not sure why that would make any more sense.

[Pugwampy]

They smell like dogs and yap like dog barks, but they didn't look like dogs in either edition of AD&D.

The Kobold originated from German folklore looked not unlike gnomes or halflings , probably why they were given "lizard features"

I can promise you if some Hollywood block buster brings out their version of a Kobold , its image will change to that.

[Zaq]

I mean, I'm always a fan of Kobolds Ate My Baby!-style fuzzy kobolds, and I'm not really fond of how WotC handles dragons (with which scaly kobolds get lumped), but KAMB! is very emphatically not part of D&D canon, so that's not really helpful. But hey, if you like fuzzy kobolds, that's something.

That said, don't use KAMB! rules in D&D. Horrible Death Checks aren't really much fun in D&D.

[Luccan]

You could make them fuzzy. Just make them all hybrid form were-rats... Actually that'd be a really interesting twist.

[Deophaun]

Back in the earlier 00's, a group of cocky high-level adventurers descended through a kobold lair with the intent of raiding a long lost city that dwelt below. What happened to those adventurers is not directly known, save for the fact that powerful magic items once belonging to them started showing up in markets, and the kobold clan that inhabited the lair they went through grew very, very rich. So rich that they didn't have enough space to store their gold.

So they invested it in a games company.

That financial support let them exercise some creative control over the product, such as fixing the omission that kobolds are really great and powerful dragons that lesser races should fear. They tried to include rules that flat out made kobolds the strongest of the races, but that was stopped--no doubt by gnomes--so instead they snuck in things like Divine Minion while their enemies were nonethewiser. There was even a long running editorial war between the kobold and gnome investors as to whether they were or were not true dragons. In the end, though, the kobolds got the upper hand with things like Dragonwrought being official, sundark goggles negating their racial penalties for a couple gold, functional claws and the slight-build racial feature.

All in all, a good investment.

[Lans]

1e Kobolds were scaled, hairless, and had horns.

http://i.imgur.com/YBfUsyt.jpg


2e Kobolds were like this:


They smell like dogs and yap like dog barks, but they didn't look like dogs in either edition of AD&D.

If you look at its snout it looks like a dogs

[Vaern]

Aye. It looks a bit dog-like in the face, but it is certainly scaled rather than furry and the description is quite clear.

[Honest Tiefling]

The Kobold originated from German folklore looked not unlike gnomes or halflings , probably why they were given "lizard features"

Technically speaking, in the beginning, Pugwampy is correct. Kobolds from Germanic folklore are tiny people who hang out in mines. Why they got scaley OR furry is beyond me. I'd note that World of Warcraft uses the furry kobold, while trolls in that game and the older entries of the Might and Magic had regeneration and were green. DnD: Corrupting the popular image of mythical creatures since 1974.

As for the evolution of the DnD kobold, it's just a guess, but I imagine that making them more dragony/lizardy and less like a scaly dog thing is because Gnolls and other beastfolk exist. Since Bugbears and orcs are already pretty porcine/fuzzy, maybe they thought that Lizardfolk could use some company.

That, or the artist turned in something weird and they decided to run with it, since 3rd edition is pretty loose with the accuracy of the art.

[KillianHawkeye]

Also, remember that there was a history of kobolds serving dragons before WotC took over. In particular, the AD&D 2e adventure Dragon Mountain featured a large number of kobolds. It could go even further back, but I didn't play much of the older editions of D&D so I don't really know.

So, given their reptilian appearance and loose association with dragons, it's not much of a stretch for WotC to have given them an even stronger relationship with dragons. Especially since this further differentiates kobolds from goblins and other small-size antagonist races. It's come to the point where kobolds are now the default low-level minions for dragons and have appeared in such roles many times since 3e, 4e, and (presumably) continuing into 5e. This is a good thing since it provides them with a more unique ecological niche.

[Duke of Urrel]

It is plausible that the movie GREMLINS has influenced the development of kobolds in the popular imagination since 1984.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/1f/14/7f/1f147fef6a4a0aec6637bf30c04b32f4.jpg

[inuyasha]

-SNIP-

...while trolls in that game and the older entries of the Might and Magic had regeneration and were green. DnD: Corrupting the popular image of mythical creatures since 1974.


-SNIP-

Just want to point out here for the troll, and for several other monsters that may eventually get mentioned, this is one example of Gary Gygax drawing from books he liked. The big regenerating troll is originally from Poul Anderson's Three Hearts & Three Lions.

[truemane]

Metamagic Mod: Kobolds might have changed, but the rules for Thread Necromancy did not.